Ville Peltonen Fights Evgeny Artyukhin

If the NHL follows through with its plan to eliminate "staged fights," we're no longer going to see the type of tomfoolery shown below. That's Florida Panthers forward Ville Peltonen dropping the gloves with Tampa Bay's Evgeny Artyukhin four seconds into Saturday's game. Eliminating these "staged" fights is probably a good thing, though we would have missed out on this insane David vs. Goliath mismatch.

Peltonen, all 5-foot-11, 200 pounds of him, challenged the 6-foot-4, 254-pound Artyuhkin right off the opening draw and ultimately ended up in the fetal position. It almost appeared as if Artyuhkin didn't want to fight, knowing full well he was going to pound Peltonen into the ice.

As for the game itself, the Panthers wasted a two-goal effort from David Booth, as they blew a 3-1 lead in the final seven minutes, eventually dropping a 4-3 shootout decision to their cross-state rivals. Martin St. Louis and Jeff Halpern netted third period goals for the Lightning, while rookie Steven Stamkos scored the only goal in the shootout.

Stamkos, by the way, is playing much better for Tampa Bay after a sluggish start to his career, and has registered 16 points in his past 17 games.

Had the Panthers held on to their two-goal lead, they would have jumped over the Rangers, 4-2 losers against Philadelphia earlier in the day, and taken over the No. 8 spot in the Eastern Conference.

Elsewhere in the east: Pittsburgh, Carolina and Buffalo lost in shootouts, while the Sabres were four seconds away from beating Atlanta. After Jason Pominville failed in his last-second clearing attempt, Thrashers forward Todd White banged home a rebound, sending the game to overtime.

Montreal fell at home to New Jersey as Martin Brodeur picked up career win No. 551.